YouTube cofounder breaks 8-year absence on site to gripe about comment policy

Jawed Karim comments on YouTube's first video with a WTF.

Jawed Karim hasn't had much to say on YouTube for some time. In fact, the cofounder of the video site hasn't posted anything since he uploaded the first video on YouTube in 2005. But this week Karim took time out of his busy schedule at the tech incubator Y Ventures to leave a comment on his own video—and to slam Google's move to link YouTube's accounts to the Google+ social networking service:

201 Reader Comments

People should be accountable for what they say online. Maybe with G+ we'll all adopt better habits and communal virtues. People will think about the content they share, the things they say, etc. Being wrong isn't a bad thing but being free to anonymously denigrate others is not constructive.

So what's your full name? Please provide proof that it's your name. You should also associate a phone number with your Ars commenting account. I would also, for my database, like a full dossier of your web surfing habits, comments on other websites (which you presumably comment on using your full legal name), and a list of every video you've watched associated with every search you've ever made.

I sold my house, and drove by a year later and the new owners weren't maintaining the garden I put a lot of effort into. Did I throw a hissy fit? Nope, I sold that house so I lost ownership of it. Grow up, Jawed.

If you put a lot of work into a project, and then entrust your hard work to someone else by selling that project to them, you do give up your right to determine the future of that project .

However, you do not give up your right to call the person out for perverting what you created if they subsequently fuck up your years of hard work.

Asshats need to be called out, not matter what they bought of who from.

I sold my house, and drove by a year later and the new owners weren't maintaining the garden I put a lot of effort into. Did I throw a hissy fit? Nope, I sold that house so I lost ownership of it. Grow up, Jawed.

So you're saying that he can't have an opinion and express it? He sold it to Google, yes. That just means he can't force policy changes. He (and all the other users of the service who have no authoritative power) is simply giving user feedback (albeit in a colorful fashion), or would you rather that Google pay no attention to what its users think?

Logging into G+ wouldn't be so terrible if G+ didn't use your real name and connect to pretty much everything on your google account. I opted out of G+, there's zero reason why I need to link my email to my real name more publicly than it already is. That and who gives a shit about social media sites? I sure the hell don't.

Again: where the fuck are you getting the idea that he wants to control it? You guys parroting this point over and over again are really weirdly fixated on this.

Holy... relax man. Where the fuck do I get the idea? Well, for fuck sakes, I get it from the fucking fact that one of the co-creators is swearing and cursing about a feature of a product he once owned and now does not. That is not a reach. If I sell a car to you and you paint it pink and then I start bitching about it, it comes across as whining and a bit silly. So when this billionaire starts swearing on a comment board I find it amusing and somewhat low-brow...

(see how I added the swear words in there for dramatic affect? Gives it weight...)

Again: where the fuck are you getting the idea that he wants to control it? You guys parroting this point over and over again are really weirdly fixated on this.

Holy... relax man. Where the fuck do I get the idea? Well, for fuck sakes, I get it from the fucking fact that one of the co-creators is swearing and cursing about a feature of a product he once owned and now does not. That is not a reach. If I sell a car to you and you paint it pink and then I start bitching about it, it comes across as whining and a bit silly. So when this billionaire starts swearing on a comment board I find it amusing and somewhat low-brow...

(see how I added the swear words in there for dramatic affect? Gives it weight...)

So he is unable to comment on poor practices on Google's part, as a user? Would it be ok if someone who didn't found YouTube to bitch about Google's completely see-through attempts to jack up Google+ numbers by forcing people using any of their services to be a member?

I have an issue with any web service that compels me to use my real name as an online identity. With all the privacy and identify theft issues that occur in our modern society, I'd much prefer to avoid this scenario. For professional sites such as Linked In, it makes sense. It does not, however, make sense on a site like Google+ and FaceBook where you are presumably interacting with friends.

Ha!, you say that like LinkedIn isn't a wretched hive of scum and villiany composed entirely of headhunters and multi-level marketing scams...

I maintain a LinkedIn account for professional networking related to my day job, mainly current and former coworkers. I've never seen MLM stuff and never been pestered by headhunters on there. I'm sure it exists, to some extent, but it probably has more to do with one's personal network on there rather than the service itself. In any case, my point was that having a real name as a requirement makes sense on a site closely tied to one's career or professional reputation, but not on other 'social' sites where one's interactions would presumably be with close friends, which is what I regard G+ and FB as.

Everytime Google tries to tout Google+ account numbers, I think of all the comments in threads like this where people say how they make accounts that are basically abandoned, make fake accounts, make duplicate and triplicate accounts, etc.

There's no way in hell the G+ numbers they tout are anywhere close to accurate in the way that they intend them to mean "people that actually use what we think of as G+".

Of course, you could say the same about Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. You could probably say the same thing about any site on the internet that has users -- even Ars...

So he is unable to comment on poor practices on Google's part, as a user? Would it be ok if someone who didn't found YouTube to bitch about Google's completely see-through attempts to jack up Google+ numbers by forcing people using any of their services to be a member?

The best way is not use something you do not like. And I do not find it all that ok for a person in his position to whine about it in such a fashion. Why not construct a criticism eloquently? He of all people might have been heard.

The better thing to come out of the Google+ integration (and something that people don't seem to be talking about) is that you can now create new channels without creating new accounts, and you can even co-manage them with others (since now YouTube channels are Google+ pages as well, what you do with the Google+ page will be reflected on the YouTube channel).

Was that worth Google+ comments? I don't know, but it's about bloody time.

I tried looking at the new comments system in IE11, and it was BEYOND broken, visually at least; it seemed like something was failing to load any external stylesheets.

But given that IE11 certainly isn't a *total* failure of a browser, and YouTube has a much more well-known track-record of publishing half-baked UI updates, I'm kind of thinking this one's much more likely Google's fault...

PS. Please let me know if this is the case for anyone else, or if something weird is going on with my computer.

With millions of people commenting it's like being on a crowded street and everyone's yelling things as they pass by. No one cares about those policies.

They do when they get temporarily or permanently banned. The high signal-to-noise ratio is because of its moderator team that brings down the Ban Hammer on ToS violators. All it takes is for a site to have a competent moderator team.

I read news articles every day that have tons of real-name, Facebook-linked comments, and they're full of bigotry and irrelevant garbage. The difference in quality is actually inversely correlated with real names in those particular cases. They're not being moderated much, if at all. That's the difference.

A lack of anonymity might put off a few people, but it's not stemming the tide.

I want to make sure to point out that I don't have a problem with having a Google+ account, or with having to have an account of some sort to be able to comment or contribute--that's a requirement most places so you can be held accountable/banned if you make an asshat out of yourself online. I'm cool with that.

It's the real name thing that bugs me. There are way too many unstable psychos out there that take offense at the slightest disagreement and I don't particularly want to be on their real-life radar in case they decide to "teach me a lesson."

With millions of people commenting it's like being on a crowded street and everyone's yelling things as they pass by. No one cares about those policies.

They do when they get temporarily or permanently banned. The high signal-to-noise ratio is because of its moderator team that brings down the Ban Hammer on ToS violators. All it takes is for a site to have a competent moderator team.

I read news articles every day that have tons of real-name, Facebook-linked comments, and they're full of bigotry and irrelevant garbage. The difference in quality is actually inversely correlated with real names in those particular cases. They're not being moderated much, if at all. That's the difference.

A lack of anonymity might put off a few people, but it's not stemming the tide.

That's an interesting point. Well to me the mechanisms are there to hold people accountable. Maybe lots of other admins overlooked the need to moderate interaction from users loging in with other site credentials like Facebook. It would be great to see someone's account tagged with the sites they've been banned from. Why not? This is for sake of argument. I want to know what people think. I am not certain about depriving people of privacy. The contexts should be examined.

That's an interesting point. Well to me the mechanisms are there to hold people accountable.

You're making an assumption, though; there's no data to back it up. As another poster said, it could just be to inflate their Google+ numbers, or maybe it's just so Google has that much more information on its users. I don't honestly know.

Quote:

Maybe lots of other admins overlooked the need to moderate interaction from users loging in with other site credentials like Facebook. It would be great to see someone's account tagged with the sites they've been banned from. Why not?

The problem is that moderators on most forums - including Ars Technica, I believe - are volunteers who do the work in their free time. Unless there are volunteers for a given site, that site would have to have paid employees, and budgets vary.

I get really tired of the G+ prompts, too. If I wanted a G+ presence, I would have gotten one by now.Equally worse, though, is now, when you sign-in to any of the Google services you use, you're signed into all of them. It's just asinine.

Ars didn't nag me to all hell to link sign in choose my real name combine accounts or block content with forms until i opened them in new windows.

that and i'd rather comment here. name e-mail password, BAM done.

Ahh I get it, it is more a problem with the application of the solution rather than the solution itself. And that is definitely a fair argument. Too bad the guy didn't frame his problem a little better.

The better thing to come out of the Google+ integration (and something that people don't seem to be talking about) is that you can now create new channels without creating new accounts, and you can even co-manage them with others (since now YouTube channels are Google+ pages as well, what you do with the Google+ page will be reflected on the YouTube channel).

Was that worth Google+ comments? I don't know, but it's about bloody time.

You seem to be asserting that B was necessary for A but there is no technological reason a person couldn't just create multiple channels without a G+ account.

That's an interesting point. Well to me the mechanisms are there to hold people accountable. Maybe lots of other admins overlooked the need to moderate interaction from users loging in with other site credentials like Facebook. It would be great to see someone's account tagged with the sites they've been banned from. Why not? This is for sake of argument. I want to know what people think. I am not certain about depriving people of privacy. The contexts should be examined.

So basically what you want is an end to privacy and a permanent record of conduct attached to every name on the internet, which just so happens to be everybody's real name and is by default also attached to their email and personally identifiable info.

In the midst of the NSA's Mass Surveillance Enterprise, WITH the cooperation of all the so called Tech Giants and Google as a mayor player, and even in the presence of the NSA wire tapping and funneling Google's internal networks and all the info from their data centers, THIS is Google's move:

* Force everyone on Youtube to use their REAL NAME. (Cause f@#k it, we all know it's you anyway). * Force everyone to sign up and use Google's Social Network. (I had just signed out from it a week ago). * Use said social network as a front-end to YouTube's Comment section.

I've never signed up for any other social network, mainly because of privacy concerns. I do enjoy the many aspects of YouTube, as a video blog, as an entertainment platform, as an educational forum, etc.

That's why I subscribed a few years ago. I also have a G-mail account. Needless to say I'm in the painful process of digital self-removal from the Google Realm, and this last move on their part only precipitates the outcome. But I was already leaving no matter what they came up with.

Nonetheless, out of every imaginable set of rules they could come up with, it's hard for me to think of something worse. Not even in my saddest dreams did I foresee this level of disconnection from reality and the mess they are in.

Not to mention the clear message they are sending to all their users.

For other obvious reasons, I'm taking my time in finding a good alternative to my email needs. As soon as I can, I'm leaving Google for good. I will only miss using YouTube as a user, my playlists and the interaction with others in the comment section... but there's nothing much I can do about it.

I can however, not passively accept what Google forces me to.

I did of course sign the petition for a change, for what it's worth...

Here's the link if you too want to voice your opinion, but do not link to that address from your Google+ account on YT because Google is banning accounts that do that. At this point it's quite obvious they pretty much don't care what we want or think. It's sad really, but they too seem to be suffering from the IBM complex: they do feel "they are too big to fail".

On a final note, I do think something should be done to address the spam epidemic and the entropy level of the comment section. But at least for me, it's pretty clear none of these measures aim to deal with those problems. Quite the opposite, they contribute to an already rampant sense of chaos, while the spam remains the same, if not worse.

I never really understood the outrage on this one. They have lots of connected services so they're trying to consolidate everything under their login system. You can still start up a Youtube channel under a different email if you want to have one separate from your normal gmail account (as I have).

No no no no no.

The problem is that Google uses a single-sign-on across all it's properties, and silently re-assigns your credentials whenever you change the login on any one of them.

So when I try to get the mail for my day job, which happens to be hosted on GMail in spite of being it's own URL, that signs me out of G+ and silently creates a new G+ account for this "other person".

Amusingly, Google suggests that I might know "Maury Markowitz".

Ideally one would simply go to your main account and say "I'm also this other email address", but you're simply not allowed to do that. So now we all have multiple G+ accounts for our various logins, which is astonishingly ironic given that the *main selling feature* of G+ was that it let you use a single page for public and private needs.

This has created utter havoc in our company. We have a company G+ page that we try to have everyone be as part of the "Team". Well good luck finding those people, because it only finds one or the other G+ account for some reason, and it's invariably the wrong one. We had employees sign up with their work emails and create new accounts under them, but G+ simply won't find them.

Worse, YouTube can only be linked to G+ accounts with the same address. We had a professional videographer upload some videos for us, which he did using a "made up" email, which has no gmail or G+ account. As such, it is *impossible* to link this account back to the G+ page. Trust me, I've tried. And since most people's YouTube and GMail accounts long predate G+, *everyone* has this problem.

The fact is that most users simply do not consider YouTube, GMail and G+ to be in any way related, either in use cases, interface or accounts. We are all aware that they are all hosted by google, but we don't consider the iMac to be a iPad just because they're made by Apple. I fully understand Google's desire to have a sort of reputation system for YT, but the fact that it *doesn't* link back to my G+ account if I upload from my work email pretty much drops that one into the trash can.

Simply put, the system is *wrong* at every possible level. What we need is a "google accounts manager", not "single address for all google accounts".

It's annoying as hell to have to login with a facebook, twitter, or google+ account on any number of totally unrelated sites that use these for commenting. Requiring a Facebook account to comment on my local newpaper's website is a farce.

But Google owns youtube so it makes sense to me they'd use their own account system on their own site. As a webadmin I can imagine the nightmare of managing more than one system of user accounts so it makes good sense to me to try to consolidate various in-house user account systems. I also have no problem with Facebook requiring a facebook account for commenting on facebook pages.

They are separate accounts (YouTube, Google+), they just link them and only use Google+ for the comments. This is why you only get prompted to upgrade when you try to comment, and can no longer comment if you are not linked. You could argue that they are avoiding resources creating/maintaining separate comment systems, but YouTube had a working comment system and preserves the existing comments to some extent [*].

[*] Where some extent means that the threading/"in reply to" support for pre-integration comments is now broken. Clicking on the "in reply to" reloads the video.

you'll get prompted without trying to comment too, even just opening a video. Not every video. It lets you do a handful in between nags.

I hate being prompted when I log into YouTube to use my real name for comments. Like hell I will.

I agree with you. I have an G+ account, and that was registered way after I already had a YT account. Now, I'm not active on YT as others are, nor do I receive any monetary incentives for any activities, but I appreciate not having the two linked, not because I am afraid of making comments as myself, but because the amount of trolling and "drive-by" harassment by bored netizens are a common-place activity in itself that I just think it's common sense not to mix the two up.

Well Ars requires us to have a membership here in order to comment. What, exactly is the difference?

Uhhh, how about for starters…

1) they don't require you to use your real name, or if you don't…2) force you to create a fake second account on a totally different service for the fake name that…3) changes the login credentials on your *email accounts*

So I want to comment on a YT video. Ok, but I just logged in to check my company mail. So now I comment from my company account. Or maybe I remember to change the account with that widget at the top. Great, now it forgets my login to G+ because it only remembers two. Try as I might, I cannot get myself to remain logged in on Google services with the right account, simply browsing around the 'net invariably requires me to switch accounts.

But don't take my word for it, log into any of the support forums on G+ and look for yourself. Of course in order to do so… you have to make a G+ account.

The prompts to get you to switch over to your real name have been incredibly passive aggressive too.

"Would you like to use your real name" *click no*"Ok... We'll ask you again later"

No seriously, it straight up says that. Like "Yeah, we realize you don't want this, but screw that we're going to pop this up as often as we want. It was only an illusion of choice anyway, its our way or the highway."

I once gave in and said yes, since my YouTube username was already my real name, I just didn’t want it directly linked to my Google+ account, but I got sick of the pop up. Then a few weeks later they gave me the option to use a screen name instead, which I jumped at since it allowed me to anonymize a previous mistake made in my youth while also de-linking it directly from my Google+ account, but creating a screen name also created a Google+ page for that screen name, not an account, a page, basically like a Facebook brand page, and transferred all of my previous YouTube user data over to the new sub-account, which is basically what it is because if I’m not paying attention, I can still use YouTube logged in with my normal Google+ account.

Fortunately for me, the general public can’t link my subaccount to my real account, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth because I never wanted my YouTube account linked to a Google Account at all in the first place.

1) they don't require you to use your real name, or if you don't…2) force you to create a fake second account on a totally different service for the fake name that…3) changes the login credentials on your *email accounts*

Yeah this was discussed and I now understand but it does seem that most people on here are more upset by the setup whereas the co-founder guy is upset that you have to login at all. It appears his original vision of having to not login whatsoever is what bothers him rather than the whole G+ problem.

Where are you getting that? It's pretty clear from his post that he's upset about Google+.

You are correct sorry. For some reason I remembered it differently.

Is it possible this is a 'baby with the bathwater' problem? Google was looking to improve the ridiculous state of the comments section by forcing people to take some ownership over their sometimes terrible comments and came up with this solution?

I sold my house, and drove by a year later and the new owners weren't maintaining the garden I put a lot of effort into. Did I throw a hissy fit? Nope, I sold that house so I lost ownership of it. Grow up, Jawed.

Honestly, not really. I have always had issues with the "comments" section of YouTube anyway, Currently, I don't let my kids (9 and 11) use YouTube unmonitored because there is no way to censor the comments. I know this is a totally different subject, but apprarently neither this guy nor Google (nor anyone in between) saw any value in allowing a parent to be able to manage access to the sespool of comments that often accompany an otherwise clean and completely wholesome video.

I use NoScript to block out the comments section while still allowing myself to watch videos. You would just have to confirm the loading of the video. By not allowing the ytimg.com script to run, the comments section never actually loads. You can probably set NoScript to run only on youtube.

As I see it, it's a catch 22. If you have a google account that is not your real name, and you allow you tube to create a G+ account attached to it, then you will be violating their TOS. The comes with the chance of them disabling your account and losing everything you have on their system. Creating a BS account just for G+/Youtube really doesn't work very well due to their single sign on for everything. I guess the only work around is only use private mode in the browser any time you want to use your bogus G+/Youtube account.

I really wish the person(s) that decided to passive-agressively prompt everyone to change to their real name had a phone number I could call and cuss them out. I've stopped using everything Google makes except youtube for this very reason. The internet is the last place that people can be semi-anonymous and Google is trying to force people to stop having that. They can go pound sand as far as I'm concerned. I will NEVER use my real name if I don't have to, and I'm willing to bet a paycheck either google makes it mandatory or they change it over without telling anyone they are and then apologize for it afterwards. I used to respect Google, but after they bought and ruined youtube with all their changes and are now trying to force people to lose their anonymity when using their services. Fuck that. If/when they make that mandatory I'll stop using everything Google makes. I'm not standing for that.